The Man Without

by Ray Robinson

  He’d started rubbing some of them off; scared their powers of persuasion were losing their impact.

  * * *

  The shortlistees looked completely out of their depth. First, Antony nodded to Lerch and observed the candidate while Lerch grunted and gasped, his arm juddering slowly closer to the Big Mac Button switch. Eventually, he managed to hit it, and activated the recorded message: Antony’s distorted voice saying,

  — What are your feelings on disabilism?

  And all the shortlistees replied, — What’s disabilism?

  Antony fielded the question to Derek.

  — Treating. Us. Like. Inferior. Beings.

  Then they asked the candidates about managing volunteers, fundraising, the Disability Discrimination Act and their views on advocacy and Independent Living.

  They had a staff meeting after work to discuss the top two, and there was much discussion over whether they could ‘mould’ the candidate. They decided to go with the guy with the sad spectacles. They nicknamed him ‘Spooner’ because he kept getting his words muddled up. He’d fit right in.

  Still no response from Jade.

  * * *

  Late at night, he watched cars passing in the street below. He wondered about the passengers inside and where the road would take them. He imagined it was twenty years ago and that it was his mother travelling home from the factory. He saw her pulling into the drive. Saw her sitting in the dark, listening to the engine click. Mouth open, eyes screwed tight, as Lou waited for her inside. She saw Lou’s pockmarked face. Lou’s tattooed fist in her mind, opening, closing. It was the only time she ever felt alive.

  * * *

  The psych made a long-fingered steeple with his hands and the opening strains of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ filled Antony’s head. The psych nodded,

  — Go on.

  Antony worried about the Dictaphone in his breast pocket—worried the psych would see it or that he might accidentally knock it and press play and their recorded, metallic-sounding voices would fill the room. But after a while he simply forgot it was there.

  — I’ve been thinking a lot about the sessions, Antony said. And I’ve been thinking a lot about what went on in my childhood. And I feel like I’ve reached a barrier. That I can talk and talk but there’s nothing I can really connect with.

  No response was always a response, a kind of invitation.

  — I don’t know whether it’s because that time was so… I don’t know. There’s part of me now that feels a real need to connect with what happened. Maybe I need something more dynamic than just sitting here talking, because I feel talking’s only going to get me so far. Does that make any sense?

  — Can you say a bit more about that?

  — I feel that I’m talking around it. It’s always worried me that I have these memories but there’s nothing connecting them. I can’t really connect with the emotions from that time. I mean, it’s like I can’t remember what it was actually like to be a child. Maybe I’m thinking about it too much?

  — I’m hearing you can remember what happened but not what you felt?

  Another impasse.

  — I want to know if there’s another type of therapy I could try? Another approach? Something more dynamic? Maybe hypnotherapy? I don’t know. Something to help me access these memories, help string them together properly. Make them linear.

  — And if you could make them linear, how would things be different? How would life be different?

  — Because I feel what happened then is still steering my life now, especially my relationships.

  — Are you talking about Rebecca? Jade?

  — I do things and say things. I act in ways I don’t understand.

  No response.

  — I need to understand why I keep doing this, why I find it hard to connect with people, why I keep pushing people away, why I keep making myself so fucking unlovable

  No response.

  — I fucked up Rebecca’s…. I just don’t…

  No response.

  — I was a shouter. A slammer. A walker-out-of-rooms.

  No response.

  — Maybe a chronology would reveal things about how I treat people now?

  Antony stared at the tree pitching slowly in the wind outside. Eventually the psych cleared his throat.

  — So you’re concerned about your relationships now, and how you think remembering past emotions will help with that. That might be true, but we know that memory is a funny thing. It’s a reconstructive process. It isn’t like reaching into an album and finding an old photograph. There are a lot of things that are difficult to reconstruct after a period of time, and if you manage to reconstruct them, then you may actually distort your memories. So what I think you’re asking for is something that therapy doesn’t necessarily deliver safely. You’re right of course, if you talk about something a lot, it doesn’t have the same emotional resonance. You desensitize it. But in a way a lot of that is good. And I’m not sure that…

  The psych started scratching his neck vigorously.

  A tickle of tears built in Antony’s eyes. He looked over his shoulder.

  It felt like somebody else was in the room.

  The psych looked at the clock and brought his hands together with a clap.

  Antony heard himself say it,

  — Sometimes I dress in women’s clothes.

  The psych’s face was unchanging.

  — Sometimes I do weird things. Sexual things.

  Antony put his hands to his throat.

  The psych went,

  — Go on.

  But Antony barged out of there. He ran from the room and out of the clinic. The cold was straight into him as he dashed to the end of the street, feeling like he had a big neon sign attached to his head, flashing:

  P-E-R-V-E-R-T

  P-E-R-V-E-R-T

  P-E-R-V-E-R-T

  It was all going wrong. He still felt like that boy trapped in that house, tied to his bed. Focus on the now. Focus. But it was all going tits up. Why had he said it, confessed it? The breath play. He hadn’t felt the need for weeks. He should’ve kept his mouth shut. The psych left a message on his mobile, saying if you needed to talk before Friday I’ll fit you in. Otherwise, I’ll see you on Friday as per. But he didn’t want to go. Maybe there’d be the police there. Maybe they’d lock him up, sectioned for his own good. Maybe that’s what he’d wanted all along. Someone to notice. Maybe that’s why he blabbed? But he felt as if he’d really fucked up. It was ruining his life. All of this remembering. Sometimes, temporarily, he did forget. Drugs, drink, glue, ropes. But he’d never forget for long. And so he wanted to make himself anew. Rid himself of a self wrought by others. Start again. Afresh.

  * * *

  Eventually he got a text from Jade.

  b good 2 speak soon x

  He couldn’t help it, he read the subtext: I’ve been comparing you to The Guy From The Village, and, so far, he keeps coming out on top.

  * * *

  Rebecca was in the shower singing that Everything But The Girl tune, when he noticed her underwear on the bed and suddenly he was taking his clothes off and slipping her knickers on, but they were too tight so he put his arms through the straps of her bra and stared at himself in the mirror

  A couple of weeks afterwards he went to House of Fraser to buy some underwear. It’s my girlfriend’s birthday. I thought I’d buy her something, well, you know. Yes, black. Her size? Oh, 38B.

  He saw tights stuffed with rice. Saw balloons filled with water.

  And when she said she couldn’t bear to look at him any more, he realised how much she resembled Cynthia Chester. Same tobacco-blonde hair and Malteser eyes. Same ultimate unavailability.

  When he was a teenager, he used to climb the tree at the bottom of Cynthia’s garden, down by the beck, and watch her windows through the halo of his parka hood. He’d go over the times she’d cut his hair in the salon, her hands on his shoulders, nails long and painted a deep scarlet red. How he’d close h
is eyes and inhale the scent from her wrist as her fingers touched the skin of his neck. And how it thrilled.

  * * *

  Antony phoned the psych and left a message saying they were massively understaffed at the Day Centre and he couldn’t make the session that Friday. Besides, Antony told himself, it was the manageress’ last day and he wouldn’t have missed her farewell bash for the whole world.

  Some of the clients, those who were high on medication, blubbed a little, and when they gave her the leaving card and presents she went,

  — Thank thank thank you so so much ev-everyone.

  Antony whispered, — Fare-fare-fucking well.

  At least Spooner made an effort with the clients—he’d even helped clean Lerch that morning. Mother of Dog! He seemed full of new ideas and energy and commitment.

  The staff had given him three months until he cracked.

  * * *

  When he got home that evening he found Jade on his doorstep, eyes tear-pink.

  He stood before her, arms folded.

  — How’d you find out where I lived?

  She told him she’d dumped The Guy From The Village.

  Antony felt a twinge of triumph, and a little explosion of guilt.

  She wiped her face.

  — He was a wanker anyway. Only interested in one thing.

  Which meant, of course, that he’d got it.

  She laughed, rubbing her nose on her sleeve.

  — The back of your Valentine’s Card, idiot.

  — Eh?

  — You’d put SENDER. Fucks the whole Anonymous Admirer thing.

  — I didn’t.

  He knew he had, he just hadn’t expect her to turn up uninvited like this.

  Or maybe he had.

  It started to spit. They stared at each other.

  — What’s wrong?

  — I can’t, he said.

  — You don’t have any bodies in there, do you?

  His larynx was a fat cauliflower, but a voice in his head said: Fuck it.

  * * *

  He saw the interior through Jade’s eyes, remembering Rebecca finding the dresses and his make-up box. Her reaction. The whole Kiss-Goodbye-To-Everything moment. He felt as if his life would be forever divided. And here he was, opening himself to rejection again. But Jade didn’t seem to notice. She was nattering on about applying for university, and it surprised him—this sudden need to be exposed.

  Then she pulled something from the chair and held it in front of her face.

  A synthetic, jet-black wig hair.

  Her eyes darted around the room:

  The montage of women’s faces;

  The huge stack of women’s magazines;

  His charcoal drawings of Rebecca;

  The open closet door;

  The dresser full of make-up.

  She chewed her cheeks quickly. Antony experienced mild emotional shock.

  — You didn’t tell me you had a flat mate, she said.

  He stood in his room and looked at her and shrugged.

  She put her hand to her mouth.

  — I’m sorry. You’re seeing someone else? I didn’t think to ask. Sorry.

  History repeating: his mess spilling into her life.

  He shook his head and watched her confusion turn to anger.

  — Well fucking what then?

  He’d been telling a stranger his innermost secrets for months now, and yet he couldn’t tell the person he felt closest to in life. It was pathetic. But what was he to say? That there’s a woman that slides in and out of his life and she’s always close by, if not entirely there. Trying to work out all of Jade’s possible, probable responses.

  — Sometimes, he said. Sometimes I like dressing up in women’s clothes.

  He said it so quietly, hesitantly, because he never thought he’d utter those words again. He never thought they’d spill from his head into another’s and create a reaction that had no U-turn, no reversal.

  Jade’s eyes turned inward.

  — But that’s all, Jade. That’s all.

  She stood up quickly and he closed his eyes, flinched, steeling himself for a slap. Heard the front door slam shut.

  * * *

  He lit a joint and sat at his desk. The laptop hummed beneath his fingers and the modem flickered. The pixelated women were pink and ever-ready moist. Analysing the pictures, he found that some images always got him off, but mostly they just looked gorgeous for twenty seconds of intense pleasure and then looked really stupid. Trying to rationalise his physical and emotional needs—he’d spent so long trying to separate the two of them out, that he didn’t know whether he’d be able to piece them back together again. The vodka burned his heart and he ached with regret as he saw himself: a leering, stoned freak hunched over his laptop, pretending everything in the world was hunky-fucking-dory and that he hadn’t just lost the woman he loved.

  * * *

  Some genus of apprehension crackled in Jack’s voice,

  — It’s your mum, son.

  — What about her?

  — I’m sorry.

  — …

  — I don’t think she’s got long left.

  He heard Jack swallow hard and so he said,

  — Oh.

  — She said she wants to see you.

  Antony hung up and examined his hands; they were Jack’s hands. He walked over the window and looked at the city outside; so alien. He opened the closet door and looked at the clothes pole inside and saw his limp, ashen body hanging from it—his flayed skin hanging in sleavings, like a Bacon painting.

  * * *

  He opened his window and listened to Manchester’s consumptive wheeze: tyres hishing along Cheetham Hill, a tram shunting softly towards Victoria, the tuneless carol of a karaoke singer belting out of a pub, builders on floodlit scaffold raising the city skyward. A siren, a child crying, children screaming in the park, the muffled applause of birds scattering. He could tell they were pigeons by the taut creak of their wings.

  There was once a time he was interested in such things.

  He remembered the rollers a’rolling and tumblers a’tumbling, how they birds would fall and shoot across the sky, somersaulting as if in celebration of his arrival. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the dark hexagonal shape of Eddie’s dovecote, the weathervane on top rusted into SW. Eddie would be sat in his wicker chair inside, Sonny wagging his tail on the floor beside him.

  He tried to remember the various types of dove and their differing calls. His favourites were the three-syllable kwoo-hoo-cuc of the collared, and the cadging whoop of the mourning dove: Noah! Pay me! Pay me!

  Ada couldn’t cope with Eddie in those last few months; he kept falling out of bed in the middle of the night and couldn’t get up again. Talking to folk not there. Pointing. Cooing like one of his doves.

  — Come help, lad. He’s on the floor again.

  Hands flapping. Blithering.

  — Help. Please.

  Eddie’s face became so blade-thin, his hands shafts of bone, the paper-rustle of him on his deathbed, but his eyes remained bird-bright.

  Antony wanted to unwind time, wanted to touch him again, to hear the music of Eddie’s joyous bassoon laugh.

  Val’s face at Eddie’s funeral, like she had nothing left.

  Antony remembered Val’s kids being taken away, one after the other.

  Mikey, Barry, Lily.

  Lily was the last to go. She was only a few years older than Antony, but when he screwed his eyes up tight and tried to remember her face, he couldn’t. He remembered the nickname she’d given him though: Spug. Because he loved birds so much.

  Her scratchy voice, full of wires and string. Her screams before she started to fit, that cacophony of vowels and white noise. Little Spuggy. Sparrow boy. Lily. Feral fitting girl. The pissy smell of her. He remembered how terrifying it was seeing her hurly-burly. That unmistakeable sound, a liquid hollow sound, of a human skull hitting concrete. Her body churning, shambling, gyrating—h
ow life would take a sudden detour. Like there was some enormous struggle going on inside her body and she always lost the fight.

  She didn’t have epilepsy; it had her.

  — Little Spug.

  The day she was taken away. The jealousy he felt.

  Lily had escaped.

  * * *

  He dialled the number. He wasn’t expecting anyone to answer. Truth was, he wanted to listen to his mother’s voice on the answer machine, but a woman went,

  — Hello?

  — It’s Antony.

  Her voice fell, shifted. She told him his mother was in hospital.

  — Who are you? Antony asked.

  — Your mum’s partner. My name’s Hat.

  — Hat?

  — Hattie.

  — Well, Hattie, as I’m sure you’re aware, we haven’t spoken for years. Are you sure she wants to see me?

  — She’s very ill, son.

  — Don’t call me son. How ill is ill?

  — She’s in theatre this afternoon.

  Hattie struggled for breath.

  — She really…

  Antony got the name of the hospital and hung up.

  * * *

  He looked at the photograph of the young woman who was his mother. He opened drawers and moved things around inside as he left a message at the Day Centre, and then he phoned Jade, fingering a dress on his bed.

  Hi, this is Jade. Don’t be a stranger, leave a message…

  He told her voicemail about his mother, about Cornwall.

  He told her voicemail how he really, really needed her right now.

  — I don’t think I can handle this alone, he said. I need you, Jade.

  He walked back over to his mother’s photograph and placed a finger against her face, thinking please.